Narcissists Make Better Leaders

Jessica Stillman is a freelance writer based in Cyprus with interests in unconventional career paths, generational differences, and the future of work. She has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch, GigaOM, and Brazen Careerist.

What qualities do we look for in a business leader? Confidence is obviously important, as is the ability to communicate and persuade, so a certain degree of extraversion is generally considered a plus. You clearly need to be driven as steering a business it’s a tough job.

What does that add up to? The prototypical business leader then is brash, bold and ambitious. Funnily enough, so is the prototypical narcissist.

"They can be preoccupied with thoughts and fantasies of their enormous success, power, attractiveness and intelligence. They are addicted to others’ admiration," Grijalva notes. Which means, over time, narcissists who emerge as leaders often end up alienating the very people that elevated them with their exploitative behavior and arrogance.

"In the long term, they’re not very good at maintaining positive, interpersonal relationships with others," says Grijalva.

So what’s the bottom line, is being a narcissist a good or bad thing when it comes to business leadership? As is the case with many things, moderation seems to be key. A touch of narcissism can help you stand out and be recognized as a leader. Too much risks undermining your effectiveness once you’ve taken the helm.

Study co-author and professor of management at the University of Nebraska Peter Ham commented that leaders with just the right level of narcissism strike "a nice balance between having sufficient levels of self-confidence, but do not manifest the negative, antisocial aspects of narcissism that involve putting others down to feel good about themselves."

What’s the takeaway here? For Grijalva the results indicate that those selecting leaders shouldn’t instantly rule out those with a slightly inflated sense of themselves. "Instead of asking whether or not narcissists make good leaders," she said, you should ask "how much narcissism it takes to be the ideal leader."